Procrastination, stress and obesity in nurses

Purpose The aim of this research is to see whether relationships exist between procrastination, stress and obesity in nurses. The research hypotheses are: • There is no relationship between obesity and the habit of procrastination. • There is no relationship between the habit of procrastination and stress. • There is no relationship between obesity and the combined effect of stress and the habit of procrastination. Methods State branches of the Australian Nurses Federation (now the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation) were approached and asked if they would provide the link to a survey to their members. The Victorian and Queensland branches put this link in their online newsletters and 459 nurses submitted responses online via the link in the newsletters. The survey incorporated Lay’s General Procrastination Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, demographic information and some questions related to alcohol, smoking, television viewing, and meal planning. A quantitative research design was used to examine relationships between these predictor variables and BMI derived from self-reported height and weight were investigated using a generalised linear model that was fitted in R using the “glm” function. Results A total of 459 responses were received. Of the 453 respondents who provided information to determine BMI, 257 (56.8%) were obese with a BMI of ≥30, and 115 (25.3%) were overweight with a BMI >25<30. Of the 449 respondents who answered the gender question, 425 (94.7%) were female. The mean age of the 453 respondents who answered the age question was 46.5 years. Analyses showed there is a strong linear relationship between meal planning and obesity (p < 0.001) and a relationship between television viewing and obesity (p < 0.005), but no relationship between smoking status and obesity (p > 0.05). There was some relationship between alcohol and obesity (p = 0.005), but this relationship varied depending on the frequency of alcohol consumption. Analyses of the results indicated a strong linear relationship (p < 0.001) between stress and procrastination, and a weak link (p < 0.1) between obesity and procrastination (after adjusting for alcohol consumption). Conclusions This research shows that stress and procrastination are clearly linked. This research reinforces evidence for this link, and also shows clear links between meal planning (lack of) and obesity, and television viewing and obesity. The implications for practice here are if stress leads to procrastination, stress might be resulting in a lack of meal planning, and the use of television viewing may be being used as both a stress relief tool and a procrastination tool. Future research could look at the directionality of the link between stress and procrastination, which could then inform strategies for intervention. While this research found only weak links between procrastination and BMI and no links to the combined effects of stress and procrastination to BMI, more diverse cohorts may provide further support for other studies which have linked procrastination and stress to BMI. Future qualitative research could provide insights into participants’ thoughts surrounding why sooner smaller rewards are repeatedly chosen over later larger rewards with regards to weight loss attempts.